Here Are the Tools I Use for Fall Cleaning.
Forget “spring cleaning”: If you’re a gardener, you know that the real cleaning happens in the fall. This is when you trim the trees, cut down the annuals, prune everything you see, and get things in order before the rain and snow. Install. While there are tools that I use every day in the garden, in the fall I pull out a few specific tools that help get the job done.
Electric saw
Turns out I’m a girl who loves power saws. I love my Ryobi chainsaw , but the electric saw is pure magic. This means that I, a five-foot tall person, can trim tree branches that are 20 feet above me. You can extend the saw up and down to make it as tall as you need it to be, and it’s a hefty mechanism. He lives in the barn most of the year, waiting for the weather to change so the trees are ready for pruning. Being able to remove scruff on lower branches and shape higher branches gave me great satisfaction using this tool.
Pop-up collections
Even though I like to ” leave the leaves ” because they make damn good compost and mulch, there is still so much to clean up in the fall – between the weeds, wilted plants, dead stems, sunflowers and other debris. Pop-up containers are ideal for this. Use them when you need them, then fold them up and put them away. They’re very lightweight yet surprisingly durable, making them easy to carry around even when packed to the brim.
This giant yard duster
When people see this huge dustpan in my yard, they tend to laugh—until they see it in action. Forget about trying to pull leaves and weeds between a rake and a gloved hand. Just scoop them up and throw them away. This dustpan allows you to sweep up wood chips and other debris from your walkway; Last year we discovered that it was so resilient that you could scoop up ice from your driveway. My dustpan is always floating around the yard because I use it almost every day while cleaning.
Damn good car
Moving mulch and compost requires more than buckets—you need a wheelbarrow to carry a decent amount of material and be able to unload it. While there are now newer models that are more van -like, and even electric models, you simply can’t argue with the flexibility of a standard one-wheeled wheelbarrow that can easily turn around and get into tight spaces.
Real loppers
Recent years have seen the rise of electric hand pruners, and while I’m a fan of them (mostly because of the hand cramps that can occur when using pruners), none of these new electric tools are going to replace loppers . These long-handled pruners are ideal for trimming branches, vines and plants that are too large for your hand pruners. The long handles don’t just give you a little reach—they provide leverage for cutting thick stems and branches. I especially like this Fiskars model – the handles are comfortable and do not fall apart in the sun.
Lawn vacuum cleaner
As I said above, I’m all for keeping your leaves. After all, why give out free mulch and compost? Not to mention, leaving them allows the creatures that live in the leaves to find a safe place to overwinter. But if you insist on cleaning the leaves, the most effective method I’ve found is a vacuum. Some leaf blowers now come with vacuum cleaners that allow you to suck up the leaves, mulch them, and then all you have to do is empty the bag you’ve been carrying on your shoulder. It’s very nice and you end up with actual mulch that you can then throw in a green bin, compost, or put back in your yard.
Electric washing machine
Although it wasn’t a big part of my youth, now I see everyone with sprayers spraying their driveways, house fronts, fences. The problem is that they do it in the spring or summer, which is a bad move in my humble opinion. At this point it gets warm and you spray microbes from the soil onto the plants. If you do this in the fall, whatever you pick out of the soil probably won’t survive the winter freeze. So spray yourself, including trellises and other gardening tools. I’ve been waiting for this Giraffe Tools version with retractable hoses (I’m a big fan of their retractable hoses).
The slugs will disappear
In the summer we have slugs, but in the fall and winter the slugs are endlessly annoying and merciless. I have tried every possible solution to avoid using a treatment like Sluggo , but there is simply no more effective option. All my beds are treated and I repeat this after every rainfall.